If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Explaining Ubuntu's 10 Second Boot Time

Phoronix: Explaining Ubuntu's 10 Second Boot Time

We shared two weeks ago that Plymouth would not be making its way to Ubuntu with the next 9.10 release as was once planned. Instead Canonical is putting their focus on improving the boot time so that there is less rationale for spending time on making a fashionable boot experience...

How much of it was Canonical deciding not to switch and how much of it was Debian deciding not to switch?

Well, who said Canonical decided it? He correctly wrote that it was decided at the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Ubuntu != Canonical, although Phoronix regularly phrases it that way. And it is no secret that there is a big overlap between Ubuntu and Debian developers.

Well, who said Canonical decided it? He correctly wrote that it was decided at the Ubuntu Developer Summit. Ubuntu != Canonical, although Phoronix regularly phrases it that way. And it is no secret that there is a big overlap between Ubuntu and Debian developers.

Offcourse ubuntu isnīt directly controlled by canonical, but they can say they will pull the plug if their wish isnīt granted, so they still have a lot of influence. Also, arenīt a lot of ubuntu developers in fact being hired by canonical to work on ubuntu?

Anyway, what does Debian have to do with this? Ubuntu could just switch to plymouth, even if debian didnīt. This is also made clear by the fact that plymouth was planned for inclusion in ubuntu 9.10 in the original plans, and I donīt think debian will have already made a new release by then.

Anyway, I rather have a 10 second bootup without a long startup process then a nice boot-up screen which I unfortunately am forced to stare at while my pc starts up, so I hope they can make this goal a reality

why the long development time?

I don't get it. Clearly Intel has already done this work in Moblin, so why can Ubuntu developer not simply copy the methodology of Moblin?
It is just a linux distribution after all, there is no shame in copying, and it certainly is not illegal?

If two-second boot times are possible _now_ other distro's should just figure out how it is done, and copy that. Not outright copy the code, but adapt the upstart code to match what moblin does.

Linux could be so much greater if not everyone keeps inventing the wheel over and over.

Well moblin takes much longer to boot when you test it from usb. Also moblin is extra stripped down, when you remove functionality from boot, it is of course faster. Like when you disable fsck, bluetooth, nfs-common or other services which are needed in case you want to automount nfs or to use bt mouse/keyboard then you can save certainly a few seconds. It is just the question if stripping down functionality should be done by default or as special purpose optimization. All other tricks like upstart could in theory improve boot time, practically a default kanotix install using sysvinit boots faster than ubuntu with upstart. You always have to compare features vs. speed. Sometimes you optimize so much for speed that you remove good features...